The first thing I do when I get to the farmers’ market is scan the stalls for unfamiliar vegetables. Some are similar enough to vegetables I know don’t ferment well that I feel comfortable passing them by. Then there are others, total weirdos I’ve never encountered before (or never noticed before; you know, like when you learn a new word, and suddenly the whole wold is saying that word a ton?). Those I usual try to ferment because I’ve come across some serious pickling gems that way. I don’t always share those here because I know that while most people can buy, say, bell peppers in the grocery store, lemon cucumbers can be harder to come by.

Nope, not cukes! Peeled celtuce. Don’t peel yours, though.

I kinda changed my tune on that recently, though. The nature of new-to-you ferments could well be that finding the ingredients to make them is challenging, and maybe, if you come across some of the fun veg I play with, you’ll buy it because you’ll have an idea of what to do with it. So in that spirit, look for all the normal veg ferments you see here in the summer, but please don’t leave annoyed comments about how you can’t find the vegetable in your area. If you don’t have these ingredients in your area, just think of these posts as inspiration for you to ferment the things you find in your area that I may not ever have had access to.

Today’s special vegetable is celtuce. Celtuce is my new best friend. It’s a “stem lettuce,” which is not a thing I was aware existed before I stumbled across it at the Plowshare Farms market High Street on Market on Saturdays. It was a fortuitous stumble, though, that got me all hyped on cucumber texture with hazelnut flavor. Seriously, that’s what celtuce tastes like. I fermented it with normal, basic starting recipe and I did it plain so I could see how the flavors changed during fermentation.

Slices of celtuce make some tasty, nutty pickles. Some towards the center of my celtuces (celti?) were whole-y. It didn’t affect texture at all.

Fermented Celtuce Pickles

Because I was only able to get my hands on celtuce a couple times, I haven’t tested this “recipe” as thoroughly as I usually would. It’s just a basic pickle, though, and I’ve made enough pickled vegetables of all varieties this way to know that it works. One thing I did differently between batches was to remove the peel (but include it in the jar), but include it during fermentation. It wasn’t necessary, and in fact, the outer area was the sweetest and most delectable part of the vegetable. In a few bites, the inner celtuce was a touch bitter. So leave those peels on, minus and discolored or soft parts. If you get a bit of peel that’s tough when you’re chowing down, consider it extra fiber or discard it.

INGREDIENTS

1 pound (460 g) stem celtuce

2 1/4 teaspoons (16.5 g) kosher salt

1.5 cups (355 ml) filtered water

(If you need more brine, mix 1 tablespoon salt to two cups of water, or a 4.5ish% brine)

HOW-TO

Slice celtuce into 1/4 to 1/2 inch rounds (think cucumber slices). They’ll weep a little milky liquid. It’s NBD. Place celtuce slices into a quart (1 L) jar, but be sure to leave about 1 inch (5 cm) between the top of the vegetables and the rim of the jar.

Stir salt into water until it’s pretty much dissolved. Pour liquid into jar and apply your favorite weight to celtuce. The brine should cover the vegetables, but just barely. The vegetables will release more liquid, and the natural fermenty bubbliness can cause overflow if you overfill the jar.

Cover the jar. If this is your first time at the pickling rodeo, start here for tips on weighting and covering.

I stopped the batches I made at 5 and 6 days, and I thought they were very ready. I know it’s a short ferment, but this is a lettuce stem, after all, so we can’t expect it to stay crispy forever.

Remove the weight, secure the jar lid and store in the fridge. Enjoy within a couple weeks for best texture. If you’re still liking the texture after a longer fridge time, keep on enjoying them!

Celtuce from Plowshare Farms at the High Street on Market Farmers’ Market

NOTE: I now have real water kefir grains. If you have some or want to know how to make it with real grains, click here over to my water kefir page. If you have spare milk kefir grains and don’t want to invest in a new culture, try it this way!

I kind of cheat on water kefir. Although most of the sugars are converted, it is still a pretty sweet drink which makes it an occasional treat in our house rather than an everyday ferment. (The sugars that are left are converted to fructose, which is why it’s still so sweet. I learned that on Cultures For Health.) I always have extra milk kefir grains floating around (pun intended) so rather than buy separate water kefir grains for my monthly water kefir batches, I just repurpose my milk kefir grains to make some bubbly, probiotic-rich, offbeat-flavored faux-soda for my husband.

I like to do it in a clear, sealable container. This allows me the fun of seeing the grains bubble up to the top and fall as fermentation takes place! Water kefir needs a little longer to ferment than milk kefir does, so be prepared to give your kefir at least 24 and up to 48 hours to complete fermentation.

Water kefir is very versatile, so I recommend experimenting with different sweeteners and flavors. I love using maple syrup, and I’ve done honey, although the experts say honey can damage your grains (since I’m using extras, I’ll take the risk for that flavor payoff). You can use any type of sweetener you like! Just make sure it is well-dissolved and mixed into the water before you add your grains.

A couple of notes: since these grains are intended for cow’s milk, you should put them back in cow’s milk and let them kefir before using them again in juice or sugar water. Think of them as bees; while they may survive off of sugar water, they will only thrive on the honey that nature intended for them.

If you have access to unpasteurized juice you can just throw the grains right into the juice. This is very satisfying and tasty, but I haven’t had success with citrus juices which are too acidic right from the start.

As with most ferments, if your water smells chlorinated, chances are you don’t want it touching your grains. A regular, charcoal water filter can take care of the problem.

Add 2 3/4 cups of water and stir/shake thoroughly until sweetener is completely dissolved (if using granular sugars, you might want to heat a small amount of water to help dissolution. Just make sure the water is totally cooled before it gets anywhere near your kefir grains!)